Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1905 — Friday Was The Winter Solstice. [ARTICLE]

Friday Was The Winter Solstice.

Last Friday, Dec. 22nd, was the day of the winter solstice. It is supposed to be the shortest day of the year, but it isn’t, for Wednesday and Thursday were just as short as Friday and Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were not any longer. This is also the day when the astronomical winter begins. As to the real, winter, that begins any old time, when rhe weather has nothing better to do. The locomotive of the sun has now reached the southern end of the line, and after a few day spent in the round-house, to oil up and cool off, it will take the main track for its long run back northward. Today is also the central point of the period, some 15 days long, which the ancient used to call “the Halcyon days.’’ This, according to the old idea, was the time when the halcyon, or kingfisher, usually took a notion that she wanted to set, and as her nest was supposed to be on a floating bunch of seaweed, very calm weather was a necessary condition. Therefore nature always produced a calm, at this time, for the halcyon’s benefit. Hence the term “Halcyondays’’ as expressive of a period of tranquility and happiness, for a nation or an individual. Tt is not out of place to add, right here, that the winter solstice usually comes ou the 21st, of December,.instead of the 22nd as it does this time, perchance from the train having to wait a little at the other end of the line, for some connecting train. Anyhow, it s was day later thanjcommon and all those papers which pro claimed Thursday as the solstice, and which number includes even the insufferably over wise Indianapolis News, were* all just that much off their reckonings.